Critical Mass

In Critical Mass, Whitley Strieber explores this unthinkable but real possibility in a furious story that is almost too terrifying to tell. Nuclear interdiction expert James Deutsch and his Muslim wife, Nabila, struggle to stop an impending nuclear attack on a great American city. Along the way, they delve deep into the hidden world of nuclear terrorism and the experts who strive to contain it, and get a compelling look at the titanic battle within Islam over its own future.

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Audible Editor Reviews

After turning Ann Coulter into a brain-munching alien (2012: The War for Souls), Whitley Strieber delivers a more serious political thriller. This audio starts out slow, then picks up with a terrorist nuclear attack on Las Vegas and a spy-versus-spy marathon. Strieber refuses to play the genre straight, so listeners also hear lectures on the science of radioactivity and the dangers of die-hard loyalty to a single party. Paul Boehmer narrates without much expression. All the dialogue sounds similar, with a slightly higher pitch, inconsistent accents, and long pauses between sentences. Boehmer's delivery of the narrative is clear but perhaps too steady, a style that makes it easy to lose track of the story thread.

Publisher's Summary

What would we do if a nuclear weapon were detonated in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. government suddenly disappeared? What would we do if a terrorist organization announced that it had concealed nuclear weapons in every major Western city and then demanded that the entire planet embrace its twisted brand of Muslim fundamentalism?

In Critical Mass, Whitley Strieber explores this unthinkable but real possibility in a furious story that is almost too terrifying to tell. Nuclear interdiction expert James Deutsch and his Muslim wife, Nabila, struggle to stop an impending nuclear attack on a great American city. Along the way, they delve deep into the hidden world of nuclear terrorism and the experts who strive to contain it, and get a compelling look at the titanic battle within Islam over its own future---fundamentalist and rejecting, or compassionate and life-embracing.

Like Strieber's classics Warday and The Coming Global Superstorm, Critical Mass is torn straight from the dark pages of a very dangerous and very possible future.

OK, I wasn't expecting much from Strieber, so I can't say I was disappointed. He is good at conceptualizing stories, but the writing falls short. Sometimes, laugh out loud short. I really wanted to like this book, being a fan of doomsday scenarios, but the action sequences were often poorly put together and implausible. Anyway, I got through it, and it's interesting enough to anticipate the listen.

No character building, over extended descriptions of events to fill pages, no real connection with the story line. I forced myself to listen to the end. If you can't find anything else worth reading/listening to, it's a maybe.

Whitley Strieber has always enticed me with his tales. Be it either a "true" depiction of alien abduction, to this fun romp through end of days terrorism. The story, I feel, is cohesive, verses the other reviewers that it's not. But that's just my opinion. I found myself listening to it for hours, eager to know what was coming next. I like his style and I like this story.

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